Meghan Markle, Prince Harry Got Something VERY Wrong About COVID-19 Vaccine, Experts Say
The Sussexes, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, are in hot waters after vaccine experts directly criticized the couple from their speech talking against "ultra-wealthy pharmaceutical companies."
The Royal couple visited the 24-hour Global Citizen Live stream event in New York. In their speech, they "condemned the global statuses of vaccine equity and called for the intellectual property for the vaccine receipts to be waived," per Express.
And so, vaccine experts claim pharmaceutical companies distributing Covid-19 recipes without a fee may not tackle international vaccine inequity.
The Vaccine Expert Speaks
The director-general of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations, Thomas Cueni, responded to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's claims against companies saying they don't work enough to solve vaccine inequity worldwide.
Cueni Telegraph, "We agree with the Sussexes that action is needed now to ensure Covid-19 vaccines are quickly and equitably shared around the world."
"Waiving intellectual property rights of Covid-19 vaccines will not increase production nor provide practical solutions needed to battle this global health crisis," he also added that they consistently stated the waiver is the simple but wrong answer to a complex problem.
"Since we now have billions of vaccines that have been produced and many more in the pipeline, calls for waiving IP is a distraction." Cueni listed down the fundamental challenges to share doses, including trade barriers, lack of raw materials, supply chain bottlenecks, and a reluctance among wealthy countries.
The Sussex' Speech
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex urged first-world countries to donate one billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines to developing countries. In Prince Harry's words, "this week we sat with independent global health leaders to further understand how we get closer to vaccine equity and ending this health crisis. But we're battling more than this virus alone."
"This is a battle of misinformation, bureaucracy, lack of transparency and lack of access. Above all this is a human rights crisis," he also stated. They even mentioned that numerous countries get to produce vaccines at home. However, they were not allowed to due to "ultra-wealthy pharmaceutical companies not sharing the recipes to make them."
And to his wife's support, she added, "Every single person on this planet has a fundamental right to get this vaccine. That's a point, but that is not happening."
"And while in this country and many others, you can go almost anywhere and get vaccinated, billions of people around the world cannot," referencing the United States.
"This year the world is meant to reach the target of vaccinating 70 percent of people in every single country, but it is wrong that so much of the vaccine supply has only gone to ten wealthy nations so far and not everyone else. It's just not ok," Meghan continued.
Dr. Simon Clarke, associate professor at the University of Reading, also responded to Meghan and Harry's claims. The professor spoke to the source and said, "People often assume that there is a single patent behind each vaccine, there is not, there are multiple patents, and they would all have to be opened."
"With the RNA vaccines in particular, I don't believe that there are many places in the developing world that could manufacture them at scale."
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